Yesterday, the day before SD HB 1217 was slated to take effect, U.S. District Court Chief Judge Karen Schreier granted a preliminary injunction. In a 61-page statement that doesn't mince words, this judge, the daughter of a former SD legislator, found that Planned Parenthood is likely to prevail on its challenge to each of the requirements of the law, including the 72-hour mandatory delay and the “pregnancy help center” requirement.
Judge Schreier wrote:
Forcing a woman to divulge to a stranger at a pregnancy help center the fact that she has chosen to undergo an abortion humiliates and degrades her as a human being. The woman will feel degraded by the compulsive nature of the Pregnancy Help Center requirements, which suggest that she has made the ‘wrong’ decision, has not really ‘thought’ about her decision to undergo an abortion, or is ‘not intelligent enough’ to make the decision with the advice of a physician. Furthermore, these women are forced into a hostile environment.
But the South Dakota government
is undeterred.
Supporters of the law, including Gov. Dennis Daugaard, said they were unsurprised by Schreier's preliminary injunction order, calling the ruling a temporary setback and vowing to continue the fight in court.
This law was ostensibly needed because so many women in SD were coerced into having abortions against their will according to Leslee Unruh, head of one of the three CPCs who registered with the state, and an anti-abortion crusader, who has worked ever since her own abortion years ago to take that choice away from other SD women. So the SD legislature passed a bill that would first require a 72-hour waiting period between the first face-to-face meeting with the doctor and the procedure. This would be the longest waiting period in the nation, but in a state where the only abortion providers are flown in from another state once a week, it effectively created a 7-day waiting period. Then they attempted to make women use that time to change their mind. Every woman seeking an abortion would be required to attend a Crisis Pregnancy Center for 'counselling,' There were no requirements about the training or qualifications of the so-called paid or volunteer counsellers except that they perform their service at a Center which has as it's fundamental mission, the prevention of abortions. There were no requirements that the CPCs see clients in a timely fashion, adding the potential for additional delays for this trimester-based procedure. Finally, if that didn't prevent enough abortions, there was no requirement that these CPCs had to file a report documenting that the mandated 'counselling session' had taken place. There was no requirement that any documentation be kept. But there was significant jeopardy for a physician who performed an abortion without verifying that this requirement for the 'counselling' had been met.
(In an earlier diary, I reported concerns that initially, no CPCs had registered with the state, leaving open the possibility that abortions could be prevented by the technicality of requiring counselling at a registered Center, when no such Center existed. Three Centers did register with the state, so that concern was made moot.)
Lawyers for the state had argued during a hearing on the injunction request last Monday that a woman did not have to divulge personal information - she could simply not speak during her meeting with the counselors, but Schreier said that was unrealistic.
Clearly unconstitutional on more than one front, the restrictions are a thinly veiled effort by anti-choice legislators to put up road blocks to access which while not outlawing abortion outright (an effort twice defeated soundly in statewide referenda) will make it so difficult that many women but more importantly, all doctors will just give up. They are willing to hide behind quasi-acceptable phrases like informed consent, while making sure that there are enough vaguely written rules and restrictions that the end result is the same. If doctors are hassled enough or threatened enough, they will close shop and the anti-choice politicians will declare victory.
And while this law will work it's way through the courts, like previous abortion restrictions passed in the state, what will the next session bring? Well, why bother with all this courtroom maneuvering? Kansas has shown us a much more expedient method to shut down all abortions.
The laws, often called "targeted regulation of abortion providers," or TRAP laws, are an increasingly common legislative maneuver to limit access to abortion by redering it tough, if not impossible, for providers to comply.
We need to find better candidates and better support for local races in 2012 too. These candidates exist even in red states like South Dakota. We need to find them and support them and elect them. This site can help.
And we need to continue supporting Planned Parenthood - their physicians, their staff and their volunteers. They have been steadfast in their defense of the right to this health care procedure. Unfortunately, the battle is far from over.